“To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept. Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”
“What Rilke said: I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
“I rest my forehead against hers, and we sit in a comfortable silence, translating our love through touch. The Princess and the Warrior, I decide in my head. When they tell the story of tomorrow, that is what they shall call it.”
“You’re a total catch.” “I know, right? I keep trying to tell people.”
“In life, you take strides forward, but you always take a few steps back. But in the end, if you take more steps forward than backward, you re making progress.”
“I was lucky to meet you, yes. Me too . . . she said, looking me in the eyes. I was lucky too. The men I know are a disaster, not one of them believes in love; so they give you this big spiel about friendship, affection, a whole load of stuff that doesn t commit them to anything. I ve got to the point where I can t stand the word friendship any more, it makes me physically sick. Or there s the other lot, the ones who get married, who get hitched as early as possible and think about nothing but their careers afterwards. You obviously weren t one of those; but I also immediately sensed that you would never talk to me about friendship, that you would never be that vulgar. From the very beginning I hoped we would sleep together, that something important would happen; but it was possible that nothing would happen, in fact it was more than likely. She stopped and sighed in irritation.”
“Enmity is a mental state, our task is to transform the enmity between the states into deep friendship.”
“On the page was exactly what I had written, but it was clearer, more immediate. The erasures, the transpositions, the small additions, and, in some way, her handwriting itself gave me the impression that I had escaped from myself and now was running a hundred paces ahead with an energy and also a harmony that the person left behind didn t know she had.”
“Each of us has been falling apart since day one, Chase. We just have to find a way to fall apart together.”
“There s a concert tonight and the few friends I ve got here have invited me to come out. They aren t my real friends though, mostly because I can t be racist, sexist, or myself around them”
“But today the united city has ceased to exist; there is no more communion of ideas. The town is a chance agglomeration of people who do not know one another, who have no common interest, save that of enriching themselves at the expense of one another.”
“Whatever happens, I’m glad we met. You’ve made the past few days more bearable for me. Thank you.”
“I don t know why I thought of Dottie as my friend but I did. I believe she thought the same way about me although she really didn t like me. In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meagre luggage. You didn t think of discarding them just because you didn t altogether like them.”
“Tangier and Lucy were the same, I thought. Both unsolvable riddles that refused to leave me in peace. And I had tired of it - of the not knowing, of always feeling as though I were on the outside of things, just on the periphery.”
“. . . and she listened with the heart of a friend who adopts your feelings as her own.”
“And just like that, we re on our way to everywhere”
“Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily, I do not mean to harm it: but if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me.”